… all this “what sort of red-blooded American renounces her citizenship over tax?” stuff is a wee bit much. It is the Government of the United States, uniquely in the civilized world, that binds citizenship to tax. An American who falls in love with an Uzbek or takes a job helping starving Third World children in Southern Sudan remains liable for US taxation and has to file US paperwork that is, in fact, more onerous than that required of US residents, and is about to get more so…

Most countries tax you if you live within their borders, some tax you if you live elsewhere but earn money within their jurisdiction, but only America claims the right to tax you simply for being American – even if you, say, live in Belgium but drive over the border to work in Luxembourg every day. This is unique to the United States: Spain taxes you if you’re a resident of Spain, Slovenia taxes you if you’re a resident of Slovenia, but America taxes you if you’re an American who’s working as a teacher in Gabon. You’re at permanent risk of double-taxation, and the fines for minor and accidental infraction are arbitrary and confiscatory.

As I say, no other developed country does this – although Eritrea does.

On January 1st 2013, all this gets worse. The FATCAT act (technically, it’s FATCA, but we all get the acronymic message) makes it not worth a foreign bank’s while to do business with Americans. I don’t just mean Mitt Romney’s chums in the Cayman Islands, but an American of modest means on a two-year secondment to Hong Kong requiring a small checking account with which to pay local utility bills – or a small businessman attempting to expand his distribution in Canada.

Sparta attorney Meredith “Larry” Lawrence will be sentenced in October on federal tax evasion charges for failing to report income from various sources – including Racers Gentleman’s Club in Sparta.

A jury found him guilty Friday on three counts of filing a false tax return for three consecutive years, starting in 2005.

Attorney by day, strip club operator by night? “Gentlemen’s clubs” tend to be open late. Maybe he was just sleep deprived?

During the two week trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elaine Leonhard described how federal agents found $800,000 in Lawrence’s safety deposit boxes.

…

She described how fees collected from women who stripped at the club would be stuffed in a white envelope and delivered to Lawrence once a week. Strippers were independent contractors required to pay “house fees” to dance at the club. The strippers even had to pay a parking fee.